Again for the Last Time
by Fellowshipper
Summary: Edge has failed Christian for the last time. Or so he would like to believe. (Brood fic)


Title: Again for the Last Time  
Disclaimer: I own the people not mentioned by names. Everyone else owns themselves. WWF/E/XYZ owns the characters. Not making any money, don't sue the high school student, blah blah blah.  
Rating: PG-13 for violence, a bit of gore, I suppose, and one bad word. But there's also mention to m/m slash, willing and non, and even the willing is incest. Heh.  
Continuance note: Waaay back when the Brood was still part of the Ministry. Remember when Christian was punished for the whole Stephanie kidnapping ordeal? This is roughly a week or so prior to that.   
  
Notes: Yikes. This is a considerably darker piece than I'm used to writing. I'm just not in a very happy-go-lucky mood tonight for some reason. This was originally planned to be part of a much larger fic, but since that fic is never going to be written, I took this one particular scene I had in mind and made it a story itself. I hope it turned out relatively well. *crosses fingers*  
  
******  
  
I can't handle the silence. It's noisy everywhere around me, but it's all from the wrong people, all for the wrong reasons. The sound of people heckling him, the sound the leather whip makes as it comes crashing down on his back, the sickening sound only immortal ears can hear as the flesh tears and the blood oozes through the cracks...yet he's completely silent. As always. He grits his teeth and endures the pain, because no matter what they do to him, he knows he is stronger than they know and can survive anything they do to him. My beloved little brother. They have no idea the fury they are awakening in him with every taunt, every crack of the whip.   
  
Still, while I know the wounds will heal and the broken ribs will mend, I can't help but sit and tremble as I watch them wholeheartedly try to destroy him. He hangs limply from long chains from the ceiling, cuffed around his wrists and digging down to the bone. His feet dangle just inches above the floor, just far enough so that he can't stand and ease the pressure that must be incredibly painful in his wrists. His shirt is in shreds a few feet away from him, his pants not in much better shape and generously doused with the blood running in rivulets down his back. The tips of his perfect blond hair are now the same color as his bloodied skin. But still, he doesn't scream. He doesn't whimper, he doesn't do anything to reveal the torment he must be feeling.   
  
My beloved little Christian. He never fails to amaze me.  
  
The Ministry, especially as of late, seems to make a hobby of beating him for no real reason other than to see him bleed. They think they have some sort of ridiculous control over him, when in truth he could easily snap out of his restraints and kill every one of them before they could blink. The sorry thing is that he won't, and they know that. He is young and small compared to everyone else, and they use that to their advantage. They remind him of it. He believes it.   
  
Too many nights are spent like this, forced to watch my brother be beaten enough to kill a mortal man. He doesn't complain, though. I wish he'd fight back, but I know as well as everyone else here that he won't. Somewhere, somehow, he decided he deserved to be treated this way, and sometimes I think that hurts worse than the actual physical treatment.  
  
Tonight, though...tonight it's been worse than any time I can remember, which might explain why I'm shaking and vainly trying to cover up the trail of blood tears leaking from the corners of my eyes. I have no idea what he could have possibly done to warrant tonight's beating, but I don't think that matters anymore. Mideon stormed into our room, full of the sadistic glee he carries far too often for my liking, ordering Christian into the basement. For a brief instant, a period much too short for any human to understand, I saw a glimmer of hopeless terror flash in his eyes, but then he went back to his usual stoic silent self and did as he was told. I followed him, begging him the entire way not to go, and as always he ignored me.   
  
When we walked down the creaky stairs, rattling with every step we took, we saw the makeshift torture chamber the Acolytes built weeks ago solely for Christian. He didn't so much as make a word of protest as Bradshaw stepped forward, grabbing a handful of fabric and ripping Christian's shirt completely off, tossing it carelessly to the floor and Christian himself in much the same manner toward the hanging chains.  
  
That was an hour ago.   
  
They take turns with him, laughing when he jerks away from the hits, making crude remarks to him in hopes of making him speak. Gangrel is and has been sitting to the side, obviously lost in thought. Ordinarily I would attempt to see what is on his mind, but he doesn't appear to be in much of a sharing mood right now.   
  
My head jerks up as the constant slapping of leather against skin stops abruptly. Christian's back is heaving rapidly with the force of his breath, and even breathing itself must be difficult with the shape his ribs are in after Farrooq used him for a punching bag earlier. Undertaker takes the whip from Mideon's hand, then turns to me, waving it.   
  
"Here," he orders, gesturing to the spot just behind Christian with the whip. I shake my head but he gestures again, more forcefully this time. "Now."   
  
Afraid of what he might do if I say no again, I oblige and move to my new position, staring evenly at him. I hear him talking to the rest of the Ministry sometimes about how he doesn't trust any of us in the Brood. He doesn't trust Christian's continual silence, Gangrel's intelligence, or me. Period. I hope to use that to my advantage, and he shrinks back momentarily under the intense pressure of my glare.   
  
"It is your turn, child," he notes in that same boring monotone, pushing the whip into my unwilling hand. Much as I'd like to keep creeping him out, I automatically look down at the object I'm now holding, repulsed by how my hand is already being stained red with Christian's blood, which is now dripping off the whip into the floor.   
  
"No." He looks at me incredulously, and in return I raise my own shirt up to my shoulders. "Stop hurting him. Punish me if you have to." I'm vaguely aware of a slight turn of Christian's head, but I'm too focused on my current plea to take much notice. Undertaker just gives a faint grin and shakes his head, the velvet hood over it swaying with the motion.   
  
"A tempting offer, Edge, but it is not your punishment to receive." He reaches out a hand and extends his index finger, tucking it under my chin and bringing my face up to meet his. "Just do this one thing for me and we'll let him go."   
  
"I can't," I murmur quietly, ashamed that I'm crying openly at this point. Behind me I can hear Mideon making snide comments and I'm tempted to beat him into dust on the ground. That, however, isn't going to happen.   
  
Undertaker watches me for a moment longer before giving me a hard push, catching me off-balance and making me slam into Christian from behind. I cringe as I feel him tense in response. "Do it," he warns threatingly, "or the beating will continue the rest of the night."   
  
"Please," I whisper hoarsely, almost choking on my words, "don't make me do this." When I get silence in return, I force back a sob and decide that a few more strikes will hurt him but I can end this all now. I bring my right arm back and then forward, revolted when the whip slashes a diagonal line across his back. He arches away from me, groaning through his teeth before finally letting out a scream that echoes harshly around the stone room. I haven't heard him scream like that since we were human, and I'd hoped to never hear the sound again.   
  
We *were* human. Once. I was seventeen, Christian fourteen. In those days, we were considered adults, pretty much. Our mother was the only relative we knew, and when she died of yellow fever, we had no idea where to turn next. Thus, it fell on my shoulders to find somewhere for us to stay. We wandered aimlessly from town to town, taking odd jobs here and there, making only enough to rent a room and get a hot meal. Sometimes our temporary employers felt sorry for the ragged little street urchins and gave us clothing that was ill-fitting and dirty, but at least it wasn't as ridden with holes and lice as what we ordinarily wore.   
  
One day I made the mistake of looking into a wealthy landowner's request for help with the estate. Christian and I packed up what very few belongings we carried with us and walked for a solid week, but we did eventually make it to his doorstep. He invited us in, fed us, gave us new clothes, insisted that we take a nap to rest, and upon waking he told us that if we were still interested, we would be responsible for doing manual labor on the land. I would be plowing and Christian, due to his small form, would help in the horse stables. We agreed, of course - compared to what jobs we'd taken previously, that seemed laughably simple. That should have been our first clue that we had sold our souls to the devil.   
  
We were only two of dozens of workers on the land. Though we all varied in stature, I believe we were all under twenty. The men in charge of the land who oversaw us and made certain we did what we were supposed to do were all much older, in their thirties at least, and made no secret of the fact they had no intentions on letting a group of brats take their jobs. And of course, Christian was the first one they made an example of.   
  
There was a time when Christian was very talkative, even borderline obnoxious because he would talk and talk and talk and seemingly never run out of things to say. He had an opinion on everything and about everyone, and while I'd learned to live with it, our bosses found it less than endearing. It started innocently enough -- they would yell at him for talking too much, but before long they began hitting him, throwing things at him. Christian, naturally, let his rebellious attitude get him into far more trouble by throwing the things right back. That's when they introduced what would gradually kill the brother I'd grown up with.   
  
They called it The Box. It was a tiny square made entirely of iron and steel that had previously been where they used the bathroom, but they decided that it could be put to much better use. After some modifications, it held only dirt, worms, bugs, and snakes. It was in direct sunlight, and thanks to the steel construction, it swallowed heat like nothing I've ever seen. The temperature inside the box was sweltering and wasn't helped in the least by nightfall. There wasn't room to stand or even turn around, so anyone unlucky enough to be shoved into the box had to sit and sweat, kept company only by the corpses of snakes fried in the heat.   
  
They left Christian in there all day the first time they introduced it, making sure that all of us still on the fields could see his metal prison. Just seeing it, knowing my baby brother was likely ready to lose his mind in there was more than enough for me, but that wasn't the worst part. When night came and we were finally allowed to go to our sleeping quarters, I lied awake in my bed and listened as his bloodcurdling screams drifted through the night air and made their way into my cabin. I could hear him kicking the walls of the box, desperately begging someone to help, screaming until his voice gave out on him. In response, knowing the box was being guarded and that I couldn't do anything to help, I cried until my throat was raw and my ribs ached from sobbing.   
  
Our bosses found it rather humorous that they could reduce a strong, sarcastic young man into a terrified little boy, so they continued to do it whenever he showed even the slightest sign of disobedience, sometimes even doing it because they were bored. On good nights they would let him out and order him to bed, but most of the time they roughed him up before throwing him to the ground and doing every ungodly act imaginable. We should have left the first chance we got, but I soon found out that once there, you were there for good. That was why I would cry myself to sleep night after night while listening to the grunting and groaning outside the door and hearing Christian's muffled pleas for them to stop.   
  
It was a very gradual process, but they broke him down, stripped every part of him that was essential in making him who he was. He became someone else entirely, someone very withdrawn and reserved but with a vicious streak that manifested itself for the first time with him all but demanding me to let him make love to me, if you can even call it that. It was more like emotionless fucking, to tell the truth. He poured out all of his frustrations and aggression into me and I took it willingly, hid the pain, and let him get his anger out. When finished, he would roll onto his side and cry, apologizing over and over again and begging me to forgive him. I would rub his back and remind him that it was my fault we were in that mess to begin with. Then we'd simply repeat the entire process the next night.   
  
After a while, he stopped talking altogether. And to my knowledge, Christian hasn't spoken a word in over a hundred years, despite all my attempts to make him.   
  
We spent four years in that place before we killed ourselves. Well, I suppose that isn't a totally correct statement, as I'm still here to tell the story, but for all intents and purposes, we were dead for a period of time. We knew we could no longer live there and be treated that way, and just as we'd always done, we made up our mind to leave. This time, though, we knew we wouldn't be going anywhere specific. No, we left everything behind us, dodging the guards and laughing maniacally as we rushed through the fields, through the woods, feeling as free as we ever had for a few minutes. It was when we came to a cliff that dropped off into a river that we knew what our only options were: we could let our captors reclaim us as their property, or we could once again make our destiny our own.   
  
All things being equal, it was the smartest thing we could have done to say our goodbyes, clasp hands, and dive off the cliff together. The fall was exhilirating, the crash excruciating. I must have broken nearly every bone in my body, if the repulsive crushing noise was any indication. My head cracked sharply against a rock, and for a while as I lay on my back, staring up at the sky, I could see the clearest, most beautiful shade of blue.   
  
Shouting voices rang through the trees overhead, branches snapping noisily, and I briefly entertained the thought that I wasn't really dead and they were going to drag me back to Hell. But then, as soon as they began, the barked orders turned to frightened screams. It was over in a moment, and I immediately thought perhaps a bear had found them. I wasn't so lucky.   
  
My vision gave out on me before I could see what exactly had happened, but my hearing was as good as ever. Footsteps echoed on the rocks behind me, water sloshed around feet, and I would have tensed if I'd been even partially in control of my body at the time. A pair of strong hands settled on my shoulders, but try as I might to fight them off, I couldn't move. They moved me, rather, pulling me up against a firm body just before the most incredible feeling of heat rushing through, out of, and around me left me unable to think of struggling. Then something wet was pushed to my lips, followed by a soft, gentle command to drink.   
  
"Drink and you will never know pain again," the voice assured, prying my mouth open and letting a few drops of liquid fall onto my tongue. I drank.   
  
Unfortunately, I know pain again now.   
  
I don't know how long they've been making me do this, but I'm knocked from my thoughts by Undertaker grabbing my wrist from behind and yanking the whip out of my hand.   
  
"That is enough," he almost purrs, sounding quite pleased with himself. I stare in shock at the horrible gouges left in my brother's back, cutting through muscle and tissue and to the bone in some places. A spectacular amount of blood lay in a puddle at his feet, covering my shoes completely. I'm too distracted by what I've done to pay much attention to how Undertaker, with just a mere flick of his hand, clears the room, his lackeys following along behind him like obedient pups.   
  
I watch as if standing outside myself as Gangrel walks over, easily breaking the chains around Christian's wrists; he drops bonelessly into my arms and I sink to the ground with his added, unexpected weight. His face is stained with blood as well, but this, I see, is not from any physical contact. He's been crying and it eats away another piece of my heart.   
  
"Oh, God, Christian," I murmur into his sweat-soaked hair, crying softly to myself and rocking him back and forth, unable to watch as Gangrel goes about the long, tedious process of closing the wounds. "Oh, Chris, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry."   
  
As he loses consciousness in my arms, I can only think to myself that I've failed him for the last time. Just like before, we are going to run away from this place, and if I have to jump off a cliff again to salvage what's left of his sanity, I will. 


End file.
